


Revelations

by hestia_lacey



Series: On the Pier [3]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-18
Updated: 2011-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-18 08:32:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/186955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hestia_lacey/pseuds/hestia_lacey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Final part in my On the Pier Series, which started out as a short episode tag to The Shrine and sort of... grew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revelations

John is an anxious press of hurt heat pushed up against Rodney, pressed close and in as though the contact between them is the only thing keeping him all together; beneath the soothing sweep of his palms, Rodney can feel the way John’s shaking, vibrating with the intensity of the words he whispers into Rodney’s throat. The hands twisted into the fabric of Rodney’s hospital gown make knots that tether them close together, and John covers his face in Rodney’s neck as though it were made of glass and he’s afraid that it might shatter if it’s not hidden safely away, closed over like windows in a gale. It feels like John is weathering a storm in Rodney’s arms, and Rodney doesn’t quite know what to make of that, doesn’t quite understand how he seems to be its genesis and John’s safe harbour both. So he just holds on, holds John down, and hopes that its enough to get him through this devastating thing he’s caught up in.

It takes a long time for John to calm, to settle into Rodney’s side. Eventually, his body goes lax; his fingers still grip the material at Rodney’s back but no longer dig for purchase in the flesh, palms resting open, a spread of heat, as though to steady himself rather than to anchor. His breathing is steady, too, a damp rush swirling in the hollow of Rodney’s throat, no longer hitching, catching on the edges of whatever broke apart inside him.

It occurs suddenly to Rodney that he’s never seen John like this before, so obviously brittle, hurt, never been this physically close to him. In fact, Rodney doesn’t think anyone on Atlantis has; John doesn’t do this, not with anybody, no matter what’s happened to them over the years. That Rodney is the first witness, that John trusts him enough to let Rodney see, to know this part of him is a humbling thing. With the realisation, the tangle of him, John’s weight pressed against Rodney feels suddenly precious, infinitely so, and the fierce, protective rush that rushes over Rodney's skin, makes it tingle, is almost overwhelming. Instinctively, Rodney tightens his hold on John, squeezing, and John takes the firm press as a signal to finally disentangle himself, push away.

John settles himself carefully back onto the bed next to Rodney, rubs his eyes with the heel of his hands then brings them together in his lap where one index finger traces the cotton of his wristband, fingers the folded corner of the paper he tucked under it. He looks scraped raw, absolutely wrecked, a devastated landscape in the wake of a hurricane and when his eyes, reddened and damp like Rodney’s never seen them, when they flit self-consciously towards Rodney, the way he’s gathered himself back in, closed in on himself, all the pieces of the last two hours, the last few weeks – Christ, years, - fall together. It’s a strike like lightening, a eureka moment when the parts of John Sheppard Rodney knows coalesce to make an unseen whole, form a solution to the equation of the man Rodney can’t believe he didn’t see before. The revelation is loud and dramatic, dynamic, in his head, but everything around him is still quiet, still fragile, and John is still sitting at his side, hiding, so when Rodney eventually speaks, he’s sure to make his words careful.

“Better?” he asks.

John flushes a little, thumbs the edge of the paper and smiles, a self-deprecating grimace that doesn’t reach his averted eyes. “Yeah,” he says, voice as raw as the rest of him, and then, “Sorry.”

Rodney shakes his head slightly, reaches out to rest a palm on one hunched shoulder. “If I don’t get to apologise neither do you.”

John eyes Rodney’s hand warily, shifts slightly in a way that may have encouraged Rodney to back away before now. But now, now Rodney needs a proof to the solution he’s come to and so he leaves his hand right where it is, resting lightly on the warm cotton-curve.

“Okay,” John says, shifting again, and looking increasingly discomforted, shoulders moving unconsciously back into Rodney’s touch even as his eyes dart to the door, scope out the exits.

Rodney slides his palm down the length of John’s arm, slow, firm, watching the way John’s breathing comes faster, the way his body coils tight as if to spring away. When his open hand reaches John’s wrist, Rodney runs a finger along the thick cotton wristband there and catches the already worn corner of the paper held beneath it. John makes a soft, swallowed sound and starts, pushing himself abruptly to stand by the bed but not moving out of Rodney’s reach, like he’s trapped, tied down by Rodney’s skin on his. His eyes are dark and wide and scared now, and before this Rodney would never have said he knew that emotion on John’s face, that he could recognise it, but the fear in it is breakingly familiar; I can’t, and I’m not going anywhere and Jesus, Jesus, how stupid must he be to miss this? Swallowing hard, Rodney curls his fingers around John’s wrist, holding, looks at John’s down-turned face.

“John? Why didn’t you tell me?”

His words, soft-spoken though they are enough to cut through whatever’s binding John to his side; John’s eyes shoot up to meet Rodney’s as he tries to pull his wrist back, to step away from the bed, but John is still pliant and weak in Rodney’s grasp, Rodney’s fingers, tight enough to bruise, closing like a manacle over the joint. Before Rodney can say anything, explain anything at all, John is speaking, stuttering and clumsy and shaking again.

“You don’t… you didn’t do anything. It’s just, just me. And it doesn’t mean anything,” he says, and Rodney can hear the apology, the desperate reassurance John is trying to give him. “I mean, I won’t, I don’t let it get in your way. In the way of us being – being friends.”

The way John speaks, the things he says crowd Rodney’s mind, repeat and echo, senseless noise that gradually refine into meanings he’s awed to comprehend, into innumerable questions, and Rodney stares at John, can’t work through these new dimensions John’s set out fast enough, doesn’t even know where to start, how.

“How long?” he says, after the silence has stretched long enough to make John flush again, make him strain fruitlessly against Rodney’s hold, twisting as though caught on a line. He stills again at Rodney’s question, shocked to immobility at the leaps Rodney has made. After a pause John swallows, shrugs one shoulder awkwardly.

“I don’t… I don’t really remember anymore,” he says and that – that’s -

“Jesus, John.”

John looks broken all over again at Rodney’s whispered exclamation and Rodney sees his eyes glaze, bright and wet before he drops his head and whispers himself: “I’m sorry.”

“Are you insane? John, this is – what you just said…” It’s unthinkable. Amazing, humbling and a thousand other things Rodney doesn’t have words for.

“I know,” John says, going slack in Rodney’s grip, turning his head and rubbing at the back of his neck. Watching him, lightening strikes again, because Rodney can almost taste John’s humiliation, his shame and God, that’s not what Rodney meant, not at all.

“No,” he says, taking advantage of John pliancy to pull him back to the side of the bed. “No, you really don’t.”

John won’t look at him, so Rodney reaches up with his free hand, cups John’s jaw in his palm and brings his head up. The contact startles him, and his eyes fly to Rodney’s full of surprise at the gesture. Rodney ignores the way John blushes, the way the pulse at his wrist jumps, makes sure to look straight into John’s eyes when he speaks because it’s important that John understand, more so now than ever before.

“I didn’t do anything?” Rodney asks, carefully neutral.

John swallows, shakes his head.

“You don’t let it ‘get in the way’?”

Another silent shake, a hitch in John’s breath.

Rodney nods, once, studies John’s face and says, “Okay, then.”

John’s eyes drop away from Rodney’s, cut loose. His voice is cracked and distressingly, heart wrenchingly grateful when he says, “Thank you.”

And that is it, that’s all Rodney can take and all the confirmation he needs. Just as John goes to step away, run, go, Rodney brings both hands to his face, cups his jaw and his cheek firmly between his palms and twists on the bed so he’s facing John, legs crossed and leaning close.

“You’re an idiot,” he says, and he feels something in him dissolve at the look of confusion on John’s face. John’s mouth drops open as though he were about to speak but Rodney shocks him into silence one last time when he sweeps a thumb, slow and deliberate, along the curve of John’s lower lip.

“Nobody has ever said anything like that to me, John. No-one’s ever… just for who I am. It does mean something, okay?”

“Rodney,” John says, eyes wide and uncertain, hands raised up as though to keep his balance on well known ground gone suddenly uneven.

“I know.” Rodney says, and he does. He does know now. “Thing is? I don’t, I don’t think it’s just you. I’ve never… But – but then there’s never been anyone like you. I mean, I have Teyla and Ronon and I… of course I do, but if anything ever happened to you, if you. Well, I – I couldn’t either. And that, that means something to.”

“So… w – what…” John asks, hands fluttering at Rodney’s shoulders as though they might brace him should he fall.

“You didn’t do anything, John. It’s just you. A-and me,” Rodney says, a barely-there confession whispered between them.

John blinks, blinks again, and then breathes deep, a measuring, strengthening breath, eyes still bravely fixed on Rodney’s and he still isn’t sure, Rodney can see it.

So before he has a chance to think about it, he tilts his head, pulls John down to him and touches their lips together.

It’s a chaste, feather-light brush of skin, soft and ephemeral as a breath, but it’s enough. John’s eyes are bright again, but it’s with an awed light, disbelieving. Rodney brings him down again, repeats the kiss but before he can back away all the energy in John’s taut body is loosed, and John is on him; his mouth, his hands, his tongue, touching everywhere, kissing Rodney deep, with such intensity and focus Rodney is left spinning, reeling.

The kiss ends and begins again, over and over, and how Rodney couldn’t know this…

“Keller, “ John gaps between one hot, slick-slide and another. Rodney shakes his head because of course not, it’s not like this, hooks an arm over John’s shoulders and brings a hand to the nape of John’s neck, soothing.

“You and me,” he says into John’s mouth, “You and me,” and seals the words into both of them when he covers John’s lips with his own.

The End 


End file.
